1991sudarshan

What is the present condition of the Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese and Kawi scripts? Why did the Malaysia and Indonesian Governments adopted the Latin script ? Does the past Tamil Imperialism has to do anything with the current neglected state of the above mentioned scripts?

I think that these writing systems are created to accommodate and render the grammar, phonology etc of the Malay language.

The Imperial

Roll eyes

1991sudarshan

Plutoboy where are you ??

The Imperial

Plutoboyz is busy with his real life. He comes very rarely. Probably not at all. I used to enjoy his posts back then. He was well educated in Cholan military and culture.

1991sudarshan

It seems that this thread is going to die for sure

Tulun

Didn't the Malays use an Arabic based script before switching to Latin? Bahasa Indonesia also i guess as it is a Malay variant. How much are the regional languages such as Javanese and Sundanese used in writing?

castrobo

The language of unity in Indonesia is Bahasa Indonesia and officially used in written or oral communication. Regarding the language in each of the different regions, it is allowed to grow and always be used as an everyday language in the area.

timdog

Modern Indonesian is a modified version of Malay, which was long the lingua franca of maritime Southeast Asia, as well as the first language of the Malay Peninsula, parts of Sumatra, and the Borneo Littoral.

Until the early 20th century it was usually written in a modified Arabic script called Jawi (note: not Kawi; that's something else). This script is still occassionally used in Malaysia (you'll see dual-script street signage in a few places, such as Johor Baru), and a little more commonly in Brunei. It is virtually unknown in modern Indonesia.

The latin script (originally with Dutch based spelling) was adopted early on by the Indonesian nationalists in the early 20th century when they chose Malay as their putative national language.

A latin script is probably better suited to Malay/Indonesian than an Arabic one, given that both vowels and dipthongs are important in this language. The current spelling system used for Malay/Indonesian is gloriously simple and entirely phonetic.

Javanese, Kawi (old literary Javanese), Balinese and Sundanese all traditionally use an Indic/Sanskrit derived script.

These are still used to some extent - particularly Balinese, and Javanese in Central Java where there is some dual-script street signage.
However, these definitely remain minority scripts, read generally by scholars, religious figures, or those from a very traditional Priyayi background. There are a few publications using these scripts, but it is more common to see Balinese or Javanese written in the roman script, like Indonesian...

What on earth has "Tamil Imperialism" got to do with anything?

1991sudarshan

These sanskrit derived scripts came into existence when the Tamils started to colonize the South East Asia. I thought that the Malay politicians purposely ignored them.

timdog

Apa-siiiiiiiiiiich?????, as they say in Indonesia.

There was no large-scale "colonisation" by "Tamils", or by any other Indians in maritime Southeast Asia. The idea of "Indianisation" as a process of conquest or colonisation is a trope of 19th century orientalists and has been dismissed by modern historians.

(And if you want to throw up counter arguments based on "logic", consider that the region later ended up using an Arabic script, being Muslim, and building mosques without the benefit of significant "Arab colonisation" either).

In neither Indonesia nor Malaysia is there any sort of official hostility to the old scripts. Javanese and Balinese are still used, but as their scripts dominated only in a pre-general-literacy era, and as a roman script and a language not traditionally written in an Indic script (Malay-Indonesian) was chosen as the vehicle for nationalism in the early 20th century, they ended up being "specialist skills".

In Malaysia meanwhile, Malay was written, not in an Indic script but in an Arabic script, prior to the shift to a roman alphabet.
So, no - "Malay politicians purposely ignored them" - definitely not.